


If you're gonna play the game, boy, you gotta learn to play it right

by Feelforfaith



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: First Time, Getting Together, M/M, Washington Capitals, Yougn Guns Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:38:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22669513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feelforfaith/pseuds/Feelforfaith
Summary: He doesn't miss the look that passes between Alex and Sasha. He should be used by now to the silent conversations the two of them have in locker rooms, or on the ice, or in front of a pack of reporters sticking microphones in their faces, but he can't help the stab of jealousy every time he catches them do it like they are perfectly happy being inside each other's heads while leaving Nicklas on the outside, looking in."Alex like suck my fingers when I fuck him," Sasha says, picking up his first card, in a pleasant tone of voice, as if he were saying that Alex might score a goal on Saturday.Nicklas, however, chokes on his breath.
Relationships: Alexander Ovechkin/Alexander Semin, Nicklas Backstrom/Alexander Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom/Alexander Ovechkin/Alexander Semin, Nicklas Backstrom/Alexander Semin
Comments: 22
Kudos: 105





	If you're gonna play the game, boy, you gotta learn to play it right

Nicklas has a great poker face. He has a fucking fantastic poker face. 

Except when it comes to Alex. 

When it comes to Alex, every emotion that floats through his head is painted on his face in bright colors. Like the fact that he wants to fuck Alex, and not in the hero-worship kind of way. He wants to fuck Alex almost as much as he wants them to win the cup in his rookie season in the NHL.

And Alex knows that because he would have to be blind not to. Because every time Nicklas looks at him, it's written all over his face, he's sure. Alex never talks about it though, just grins at Nicklas and hands him another beer—illegal, because fuck America and their stupid rules—or a game controller. Nicklas is good with both, beers and game controllers, but it only makes him want Alex even more.

Sasha must know that, too, because Sasha is Sasha, and he knows things in that special Sasha way that comes from an _I don't give a shit_ attitude laced with a healthy dose of paying attention on those rare occasions when something matters to him. 

And, Nicklas noticed, Sasha has been paying attention. 

That's why he must know that Nicklas wants Alex, but he never talks about it either, in none of the languages they don't quite share, just smiles at Nicklas—like Alex, but in a quieter, more Russian way—throws an arm around Alex and pulls him in, presses their hips together close enough to make Nicklas squirm, and slips his hand under Alex's t-shirt like he owns him.

Sometimes Nicklas hates Sasha.

"I see you _dvadtsat_ and raise you _dvesti_," Sasha says and tosses two chips marked 10 and then two marked 100 on the table.

Sometimes Nicklas really fucking hates Sasha.

His share of the chips has shrunk to almost nonexistent in the last half an hour. The stacks of chips on Sasha's side of the table—colorful towers standing to attention in a straight line—have grown in reverse proportion. 

"Don't play poker with the Russians," Nylander told him when he found Nicklas with a dozen browser tabs open on one of those _How to win at poker_ websites. But did Nicklas listen to him? _Nyet_. 

But they don't play for real money, so what does he have to lose? 

Alex abandoned his place at the table a while ago, after a hand when he bet everything he had against Sasha. He raised his eyebrows and flashed that blinding, gap-toothed grin that broadcasts, _I'm Alex Ovechkin, just watch me_, and Nicklas always watches, of course, he does, because he can't make himself not to. He watched as Alex pushed all his chips to the middle of the table, and he watched as Alex lost them all twenty seconds later, because Alex is Alex, and he plays hard and fast, and he loses hard and fast. 

Sasha didn't even blink. He gathered Alex's chips with that _What can you do with him?_ smile that Nicklas finds strangely mesmerizing—the same way he finds Crosby's backhand passes mesmerizing—and arranged them into neat stacks by his elbow.

And Nicklas has ideas of what he could do with Alex, very vivid ideas, but he's pretty sure the question in Sasha's smile was entirely rhetorical. 

Under Sasha's gaze, he shifts in his chair and runs his tongue over his lips. He checks his cards again. Maybe the pair of tens has been somehow replaced with something better, something he could make a play with, something he could throw on the table with Alex's just-watch-me grin and challenge Sasha. 

He sighs. "I fold."

His luck has been so shitty tonight. The last sip of the lukewarm beer makes him wince. He should have listened to Nylander.

"Is late and time for bed, Nicklas," Sasha says, building another little tower out of the newly acquired chips. "Last game?"

Nicklas is distracted by the way Sasha's mouth moves, the way it shapes his name, _Nicklas_, like it's something Sasha is tasting and trying to decide if he likes it.

He shakes his head and refocuses on the rest of Sasha's face. "Yeah, okay." 

"And if you win ..." Sasha props an elbow on the table, rolling a black chip between his fingers, back and forth, back and forth, before he flicks it, and the chip drops onto the table between them like gloves on the ice. "You can fuck Alex tonight."

Nicklas's mind trips over Sasha's words, just stumbles and faceplants into the ground.

He replays the words in his head, translating each one again to make sure he got them right, but they still come out as _You can fuck Alex tonight._

Any moment now, Sasha's going to say, "Is joke, rookie," and he and Alex will dissolve into laughter, and they are going to chirp him about it until the bitter end of his NHL career. 

He glares at Sasha preemptively.

Sasha finishes arranging his chips, and he rests both elbows on the table and leans forward. "What you think?"

Nicklas bites down on his lip. "Ha-ha, very funny." He stacks the syllables carefully on top of one another like Sasha's poker chips.

The room is so quiet he can hear his own stupid heart thudding somewhere in his rib cage. He's convinced, so can Sasha. He doesn't care.

He's looking at Sasha, and Sasha is looking back at him, his brown eyes warm and watchful, and it finally sinks in that Sasha is serious. 

The realization makes the muscles in his stomach coil with bottomless want, like something has been set free, and it's too late now to cage it back. He glances at Alex for the first time since ... since Sasha made his offer.

After Alex dropped out of the game, he moved his chair to sit next to Sasha, and he's been almost silent. Usually, you can't shut him up when they hang out together. Alex always has something to say—in Russian, which Nicklas doesn't understand, or in broken English, which Nicklas has become fluent in, or in a bastardized amalgamation of both—but he hasn't said much in the last half an hour. It hits Nicklas only now how weird that is. 

Alex has a hand wrapped around a bottle of Bud Light that he tips to his mouth, but his other hand is under the table, and Nicklas can't see it, but he's sure—he's so sure, he would bet his best pair of skates on it—that his other hand is groping Sasha, doing things to Sasha that set Nicklas's teeth on edge. 

"What about Alex? Doesn't he—" He closes his mouth abruptly, and the sentence hangs in the air unfinished. 

"Doesn't he—what?" Sasha tilts his head like he can't understand what Nicklas is trying to say. Like it doesn't even cross his mind that perhaps Alex should be consulted on the matter.

And well, maybe it doesn't.

During the whole exchange, Alex has been sipping his beer, looking from Sasha to Nicklas with a politely curious expression as if they were talking about somebody else entirely.

Nicklas hooks his foot around the chair leg. "And what happens if I lose?" It's a valid question, after all, considering how his night's gone so far.

One corner of Sasha's mouth curves up. "You lose, you watch." He winks at Nicklas. 

Sasha is probably joking. Probably. But somewhere on the edges of Nicklas's consciousness, an image of Sasha with Alex under him and Nicklas watching them flashes and disappears, leaving him breathless. 

He bites his lower lip. He's got half a dozen chips left against Sasha's tall stacks. "I don't have enough chips to bet against you." 

"You not need more chips. We play Russian way, all your chips against all mine."

Despite his crash course in poker, Nicklas doesn't know what the Russian way means—and he doesn't trust Sasha not to make things up when it suits him—but he says, "Okay," rushing the words out before Sasha changes his mind. 

Sasha doesn't look like he wants to change his mind.

"Good," he says and adds, "We play. Alex deal." He gathers the cards scattered on the table and hands them to Alex.

Alex shuffles the cards with the skill of a professional card dealer, making them dance in his hands like they are performing ballet. Nicklas watches Alex's hands with their bruised knuckles and blunt fingernails, and he has to squeeze his eyes shut so he doesn't get distracted thinking about how these hands would feel on him. 

He waits for Alex to lay five cards in front of him. A jack, two kings, a three, and a ten. Not the worst hand he's gotten tonight, but nothing to write home about either. He fans out the cards in his hand and rearranges them with the two kings on the left. His fingers leave sweaty marks on the glossy surface of the cards. 

He doesn't miss the look that passes between Alex and Sasha. He should be used by now to the silent conversations the two of them have in locker rooms, or on the ice, or in front of a pack of reporters sticking microphones in their faces, but he can't help the stab of jealousy every time he catches them do it like they are perfectly happy being inside each other's heads while leaving Nicklas on the outside, looking in. 

"Alex like suck my fingers when I fuck him," Sasha says, picking up his first card, in a pleasant tone of voice as if he were saying that Alex might score a goal on Saturday. 

Nicklas, however, chokes on his breath.

"You know?" Sasha picks up another card and slots it into the ones in his hand. He raises his head to look at Nicklas.

Nicklas doesn't know if the appropriate response is _Yes, I know,_ or _Really? I had no idea_, or _I hope to find out tonight_, but it doesn't matter anyway since he couldn't get a word out right now if he tried.

He sneaks a look at Sasha again, but Sasha's expression is as impenetrable as the gold and black backs of the cards in his hand. 

Alex holds the rest of the deck in one hand, the thumb of his other hand pressing on the top card, ready to deal it to Sasha if he wants it, looking at Sasha like Sasha is the next Gretzky. 

Which Sasha most definitely is not.

Nicklas grinds his teeth and grips his cards tighter. 

When he jerks off to his fantasies about Alex, what always ruins the fantasy is Sasha. He shows up and sits in the corner, and no matter how hard Nicklas tries, he can't get rid of him, which is kinda screwed up, considering it's his head and his fantasy, and he should have a say in who is invited into it. But Sasha refuses to leave. Sometimes he climbs onto the bed behind Nicklas and grips Nicklas's hips while Nicklas is fucking Alex, and without fail, it makes him come with a desperate, mind-bending shudder that leaves him wrung out and yet still wanting more.

Sometimes Nicklas really, really fucking hates Sasha.

He holds on to the two kings and drops the other three cards face down on the table. 

"Hit me." The words roll off his tongue with practiced ease.

Alex turns to him and does his dealing magic, and three new cards land in front of Nicklas. 

One by one, he picks them up calmly, but his heart leaps up in his rib cage and does a backflip somewhere in his throat before settling back in—King of Hearts. Then an Ace and a 9. It's the strongest hand he's had all night. 

He breathes and loosens his shoulders a little, not enough for Sasha to notice, he hopes.

Unblinking, he watches as Sasha strokes his lower lip with his thumb the way Nicklas would find totally hot, under other circumstances. The seconds tick away while he struggles not to get distracted by Sasha's mouth again.

"Syoma?" Alex says, holding the cards out to Sasha.

Sasha passes a card to him and raises one finger. 

After Alex deals him one card, Sasha adds it to the four in his hand and glances at them, then at Nicklas. "Now we look." 

He pushes all his chips to the middle of the table, and after a moment, so does Nicklas. 

His heart hammers in his chest, but he schools his face into a blank expression as he lays out his cards, one by one, with the three kings revealed last. 

_How do you like that, Sasha?_

He wants Sasha to flinch, wants to revel in the line of Sasha's mouth going tight, but all he gets is a flicker of something he doesn't recognize that passes across Sasha's face, and an unsettling feeling fills the pit of his stomach like he's overbalanced and heading face-first towards the ice.

"Nicky," Sasha says. 

It sounds like permission, but it feels like a challenge.

Sasha throws his cards on the table. He has two pairs.

A spiral of heat uncoils in Nicklas's belly, radiating in all directions, making his limbs feel loose and heavy and tense, all at once, like he's flying or like he's drowning. A tiny voice somewhere inside his head tries to lodge its objection that it was too easy, _way too easy_, but he shuts it down.

He stands up, pushing his chair back, and the chair crashes to the floor. 

"I won." It still doesn't feel real like he's in a dream where he knows he's dreaming because everything is filtered through a layer of distant awareness that he's going to wake up any second now. 

"Yes." Sasha is standing up too, holding out his hand to Alex, palm up, and Alex goes into his embrace eagerly.

Sasha slips the fingers of one hand into the back pocket of Alex's jeans and speaks to Alex in Russian, melodic vowels curling around unfamiliar words. Alex glances at Nicklas and replies in Russian, too, and Nicklas blinks, trying and failing to understand. 

It seems like it's mid-sentence, mid-word even, when Sasha kisses Alex like it's a natural progression from talking to kissing, and Alex wraps his arm around Sasha's back, and Sasha's hand finds its way under Alex's t-shirt. 

Heat is still rising in Nicklas's guts, worse now that they are kissing, almost making out right in front of him. _Hey_, he wants to yell. _Hey, that's enough, that's mine!_

It takes a long moment before Sasha pulls away from Alex, but he keeps his arm wrapped around him. 

"Yes, Nicky? You be good to Alex?"

Nicklas stares at him. What a stupid question. "Yeah." He licks his lips. "Yeah, I will." 

All he wants is to take Alex and get the hell out of here already.

Alex nuzzles Sasha's ear and says something in Russian again, and Sasha laughs and presses their foreheads together. It's like they forgot Nicklas even exists. Nicklas digs his fingernails into his palms. He's never been so close, so in sync with anybody in his life like Alex and Sasha are with each other. And it never mattered before, but now it does, and he's confused by the feeling of missing something so much it makes his mouth taste bitter.

So how's that supposed to go now?

_Dear Agnes, How do you politely say goodnight to your teammate whose boyfriend you are taking home with you to fuck? Signed: Horny in Washington, DC._

His thoughts snag on the question of how he is going to smuggle Alex into Nylander's guest room but screw it. He can take them to a hotel like an adult.

He clears his throat. " Alex, let's go."

"No." There's a rough, unfamiliar edge in Sasha's voice.

Nicklas freezes. "What?"

Sasha turns away from Alex, towards Nicklas, opening up his space, but his hand stays curled around Alex's neck. 

"I say you can fuck Alex. I not say you can go home with Alex."

Nicklas tries to stare Sasha down, but it's a challenge considering Sasha has a good couple centimeters on him, and he is also one of those people who defy normal stare-down rules. Still, Nicklas is not averse to throwing punches when necessary. 

"What does that mean?" he says. 

"You want fuck him, you fuck him in my bed. Or ..."

Nicklas hates that smirk, fucking hates it. He steps closer to Sasha. They stand close enough now that he could reach out and shove Sasha if he wanted. And he feels like he wants to.

"Or what?"

"Or go home. Alone."

"You asshole."

"Nicke."

Alex's voice makes Nicklas wince. Alex has never given him anything but enthusiastic praise—as a player, as a teammate, as a friend—and the scolding hurts like a stick to the face. 

"Fuck him in my bed," Sasha says, without a trace of anger in his voice, which is somehow even more scary, "or go home and cry."

Nicklas bites down on his lip, fighting the heat spilling out onto his cheeks, and the overload of emotions surging through him. He takes a deep breath that doesn't calm the jitters inside him at all. His eyes flick to Alex then back to Sasha. They are watching him, but neither of them offers any clues to how he's supposed to handle this. 

For a moment, he thinks about leaving. He thinks about slamming the door and leaving both of them behind, and maybe this is what Sasha is hoping for. 

His heart is pounding. Screw Sasha. "I'm not going home."

Sasha looks like he's holding back a smile. "No. I not think you go."

Nicklas wipes his sweaty palms on his jeans and squares his shoulders. 

"Let's do it then," he says to Alex and takes a step towards the hallway, toward Sasha's bedroom.

Sasha stops him with his arm wrapped across Nicklas's chest from behind. He tries to get away, but Sasha holds him tight. 

"I know you think you not like me," Sasha says into his ear.

His voice makes Nicklas's stomach flutter. "You don't know what I think." 

Sasha presses his face into Nicklas's hair and _smells_ him. Then he lets go of him with a gentle push. "You go, show Alex good time." 

It's weird following Alex through the long hallway and into Sasha's bedroom. Alex's broad shoulders stretch his worn-out t-shirt, and Nicklas wants to touch him, wants to tug on the fabric and tell Alex to hold on, to wait before they enter the room, but he runs out of time, and then they are inside.

On the dresser, a lamp with crystals hanging from the bottom of the shade illuminates Sasha's bedroom, throwing a circle of soft, yellow light against the shadowed corners. 

Alex stops in front of the bed, tugs on the back of his t-shirt and drags it over his head. 

"Wait," Nicklas says because this whole thing is slipping away from him, and he needs a moment to collect himself. "Alex—wait a minute." 

Alex drops his t-shirt to the floor and gives him a hurt look. "You not want me naked?"

Jesus. How can Alex think that? "I do. That's not—I mean—" 

He doesn't know how to finish the sentence so it makes sense, because his mind is a jumbled mess of thoughts and feelings and wanting, and not capable of producing a rational explanation. 

The gold cross on Alex's chest glints like a temptation. 

Nicklas lets his gaze wander down, down Alex's abs, down the trail of dark hairs disappearing behind the waistband of his artistically ripped jeans with holes through which he can see glimpses of Alex's knees and his muscular thighs. 

And yeah, he very much wants Alex naked, but for all the thinking about Alex naked he's indulged in since he saw Alex in a state of chaotic undress after his first practice in a red jersey, maybe he didn't quite think _this_ through.

Alex is taller than him, more imposing, and, unlike Nicklas's, his face with a scruffy beard along the strong jawline has lost any traces of the teenager Alex used to be once, but Nicklas has never seen him looking so vulnerable the way he looks now, framed against Sasha's white sheets, standing among Sasha's shirts and jeans scattered around on the floor, enveloped in the faint scent of Sasha's cologne. 

"Alex, do you even want this?" he says quietly. 

There's a part of him that doesn't know what he will do if Alex says, no. 

He startles when Alex takes two strides that close the distance between them.

"What you think?" Alex says. He reaches out and cradles the back of Nicklas's neck, bringing their heads together, almost touching. "I look like I not want?" 

The words skate across Nicklas's mouth with a rush of hot breath. He wants nothing more than to obliterate the centimeter of air between them and stop thinking, _stop thinking_, and take everything from Alex, but instead, he closes his eyes and keeps the distance between them. "You didn't say anything to me all evening."

Alex's breath is hot against his mouth. "I talked much tonight."

Nicklas shivers. His fingers brush Alex's back, tracing the warm skin where it dips above his jeans. 

"You know what I mean. You didn't say anything when Sasha—" He stops because how does he put that into words? 

He doesn't have the time to think about it. His eyes fly open when Alex wraps his arm around him and manhandles him toward the bed—Nicklas registers a _thud_ of the bedroom door kicked shut—and they both topple onto the mattress. For all Alex's bulk settled on top of him, it's a surprisingly enjoyable position. Nicklas could get used to it. His arms circle Alex's back to bring him even closer. Through the layers of fabric, Alex is hard against him. So is Nicklas. 

Leaning on one elbow, Alex strokes Nicklas's cheek with the back of his fingers.

"How old you, Nicke?" 

Nicklas shoves his hips up, not trying to get out from under Alex but wanting to show his discontent with this line of questioning. 

"You know how old I am." 

It's not like Alex and Sasha didn't get him drunk off his ass on champagne and Stolichnaya for his birthday a few months ago. Nylander took one disapproving look at him the next morning when they escorted him home, and then he left water and aspirin on the nightstand and hustled all the kids out of the house for a day trip. The _God, please let me die already_ hangover taunted Nicklas for the rest of the weekend.

"How old you?" Alex repeats, unfazed.

"Twenty," Nicklas forces out through his teeth. 

Alex quirks his lips, and Nicklas shoves his hips up again, with more force this time, because now Alex is pissing him off, but Alex's not going anywhere, is not making any effort to take his weight off Nicklas, and it amazes Nicklas how good it feels, how unbelievably good it feels not to be able to push Alex off him. 

Alex holds Nicklas's jaw, scratching his fingernails lightly against Nicklas's cheek. "You so young, Nicke." 

"So what?" Alex is not that much older. But two years, two seasons in the NHL, that's a lot older. "Why does it matter?" He swats at Alex's back.

Alex tightens his grip on Nicklas's jaw. "Stop." 

"Or what?"

"Or I make you," Alex says, and his mouth descends on Nicklas's.

Instead of another punch, his fingers dig into Alex's back.

_Holy shit._

Any other words he might think about forming are swallowed by Alex, by Alex's mouth taking and taking over, by his teeth leaving stinging heat in their wake, by his tongue invading Nicklas's mouth, breaking him open, forcing the air out of him, and Nicklas doesn't try to resist, doesn't try to breathe, and why would he even want to.

When Alex lets go of his mouth, Nicklas pants like he's skated double suicides. 

Alex's naked heartbeat thunders against Nicklas's chest, almost in synch. His chapped lips are parted and shiny, and it's not fair that anybody can inflict such devastation with just their mouth. 

"You kiss Sasha like this?" Nicklas says when he can speak again. 

Alex laughs, head thrown back and a mouth full of teeth, and he rolls off Nicklas, and Nicklas already misses his body, anchoring him down. 

Lying on his side with his knees bent, Alex props his head on his elbow.

"Top or bottom?" he asks.

Nicklas frowns and tries to switch gears to catch up with the new turn in the conversation.

"You fuck me, or I fuck you?" Alex elaborates. 

_Right._ Nicklas knows that, but his brain is trailing a few steps behind. 

"I like both, no problem." Alex shrugs like it's nothing, like they are talking about ice cream flavors: strawberry or vanilla. "Sasha like top," he adds.

His eyes brighten when he says Sasha's name like he's letting Nicklas in on a secret, something that will bind them together in their shared knowledge.

And Nicklas has wondered, all those times he thought about Alex and Sasha together, and it's gratifying to know he was right.

"Top," he says. He mimics Alex's posture, propping his head on his elbow, so they face each other.

Alex watches him intently. His forehead wrinkles.

"What?" Nicklas says when the silence becomes too much.

"You have sex with men before?" Alex says. "Not blowjob. Sex."

Nicklas will turn crimson if he breaks eye contact with Alex, so he stares right back, trying for his best menacing glare. "Does it matter?"

"Maybe."

"Then make it not fucking matter."

"Look at you, rookie." Alex nudges him with his big toe. "You so grown up now. Where shy little Nicke from draft?" 

Nicklas kicks him in the shin because fuck that shit. 

Alex winces and laughs at the same time. "Lube in nightstand," he says. "On bottom."

Nicklas tenses. He doesn't have a witty reply to this, so he says, "You have condoms?"

Alex shrugs. "Is all there."

Nicklas rolls over and reaches down over the edge of the bed. He shoves Sasha's hideous, neon orange Nikes out of the way, but it's hard to open the bottom drawer from this angle. He slides off the bed and crouches on the floor.

The bottom drawer reveals not only the lube—two bottles of it—and an open box of condoms but also a pair of wide, black leather cuffs with silver buckles and a chain connecting them. 

Nicklas is very proud of himself for not making any sound at all.

He pushes the cuffs aside, grabs one of the bottles and a few condoms, and shoves the drawer shut. He stands up. 

Alex raises his eyebrows and bites his lip. 

Nicklas drops the lube and condoms on the bed and dares him to say something. 

Alex pats the mattress in front of him. "Come here."

"No," Nicklas says. "Take your jeans off."

"You ask so nice, Nicke," Alex says and teases the top button of his fly open. Then another. He takes his time, lifts his hips and slowly pushes his jeans and boxers down his hips, his eyes locked with Nicklas's.

Nicklas feels like he's being wound up from inside with every centimeter of skin revealed. Because there's naked, and then there is _Alex_ naked.

He's staring, he knows he is, but right here and right now, for however long he's been given this, he's allowed to look, is allowed to take all he wants. His mouth is dry. He licks his lips.

Leaning back on his elbows, Alex kicks his jeans off the bed. He folds his hands under his head, stretches, and lets his knees fall apart. His cock is hard, and it curves towards his belly. "You like?"

Nicklas's stomach tightens with heat. He very much likes. "Yes."

He shoves away the thought that there is an expiration date on being allowed to look at Alex naked and feel like Alex is all his and Nicklas is invincible. 

Alex nods with his chin. "Your turn." 

Nicklas takes a deep breath and forces himself to relax his shoulders. He pulls his t-shirt over his head, strips out of it then hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans.

He's not as ripped as Alex, probably never will be, but he's never been self-conscious about his body, and it's not like he's never gotten naked with anybody before, but taking his clothes off for Alex is the most awkward thing he's ever done related to sex, and at the same time, it's the easiest thing he's ever done, which doesn't make sense at all.

He pops the button open on his jeans.

Alex's gaze slips from his face, down his chest, and then lower, stays there for a long moment, long enough for a hot flush to start creeping up Nicklas's neck. Alex shifts to his knees, shuffling closer until he's kneeling on the edge of the bed in front of him.

Any traces of amusement have left his face. He takes measured breaths, his chest rising and falling. His hands hang loosely, fingers curl and relax like he's stopping himself from touching Nicklas.

Nicklas wants him to touch. 

Taking his time, he slides the zipper down and pushes his jeans and underwear down his hips. 

"Nicke." Alex runs his tongue along his lower lip and grips his thighs with his hands like he wants to give them something to do. 

Nicklas shoves his jeans all the way down and steps out of them. His skin prickles even though the room is warm. He straightens his shoulders and pushes his hair off his face. 

He doesn't have a play for what to do now. But he's got the puck, and there's the net, and he's determined to find the back of it, no matter what. He takes a step toward the bed, and his knees bump against the mattress. He reaches out to Alex and grips his shoulders; his thumbs dig into the skin above Alex's collar bones. It's a good start. 

"I want to kiss you again," he says.

Alex tilts his head up. "Kiss me."

Nicklas leans in, threads his fingers into Alex's hair and licks at his lips and is almost surprised when Alex opens up for him, pliant, as if a part of him expected Alex to fight him. He gasps into Alex's mouth and sinks deeper into the kiss, leans in more, trusting Alex to support him.

Alex wraps an arm around him, and his other hand travels up the back of Nicklas's thigh. He drags Nicklas closer, closer, until he is flush against Alex, and there is no air left between them. 

Alex pulls him back, folds down under him not letting go of his mouth, and with a dangerous tangle of legs and knees and noses and teeth, they fall back onto the mattress, and this time, Nicklas ends up on top of Alex, on top of naked Alex, and it's a whole new perspective. 

His dick is hard against Alex's stomach, and he groans and thrusts his hips against the warm, welcoming skin.

Alex is all shifting muscles and hard angles and calloused fingers and a scratchy beard and raw strength—all these things Nicklas would think about when he fucked girls, when he wished that one of them would pin his hands down and not let him move. All these things he realized from the moment he saw Alex that Alex could do to him the way no girl would ever be able to. 

"Hi," Alex says and tangles his leg in between Nicklas's, pressing his heel against the back of Nicklas's calf. 

His eyes are winter blue under the unruly eyebrows, and Nicklas can see the whole world in them. Even when Alex is not smiling, there's a smile waiting in the corners of his mouth, and every time Nicklas is the one to set it free, it makes him feel weightless. 

"Hi," he replies and brushes strands of shaggy hair out of Alex's eyes.

Alex shakes his head like a horse that refuses to be tamed and lets the hair fall back into his eyes. 

There's no world outside this room, no hockey, nobody else but him and Alex, and it's too easy to forget why they are here.

He runs his thumb along Alex's bottom lip, pushes down on it, revealing the row of teeth and slips his thumb inside. Alex's tongue is there to meet him, and Alex closes his mouth around him and sucks, and Nicklas thrusts his hips against Alex, and the sweet friction of rubbing his dick against Alex's turns his spine to liquid. 

"Sasha was right," he says, his voice not quite steady.

In reply, Alex bites down hard, and Nicklas yelps and jerks his thumb out of his mouth. "What?"

Alex grips Nicklas's wrist, brings it to his mouth and kisses the bite mark. "Sasha always right." He kisses the knuckles, one by one, then nuzzles his curled fingers until Nicklas opens his hand, and Alex presses a kiss to the palm of his hand. "You want to talk about Sasha, or you want to fuck?"

Nicklas breathes in the sharp smell of Alex's skin—soap and sweat, and the ocean-clean scent of the same deodorant Sasha uses.

When he jerks off thinking about Alex, he usually has Alex kneeling, holding on to the headboard, his forearms locked and head down, arching his back when Nicklas fucks him. His bed in Nylander's guestroom doesn't even have a headboard, but Sasha's bed has one with an iron bar along the top of it like it's meant for Alex to wrap his fingers around it. His mind whites out with want.

"Turn over." He lifts himself off Alex to give him room to move. "I want you on hands and knees."

But Alex shakes his head. "No."

The challenge in his voice startles Nicklas. "Why?"

"I want look at you when you fuck me."

Nicklas clenches his jaw. "Is this how Sasha fucks you?"

Alex reaches out to cradle his cheek. "Your eyes so beautiful, Nicke. I wanna look into your beautiful, green eyes." 

Nicklas stares at him for a second, then shoves his hand away. "Oh, fuck off." 

They both burst out laughing, and it feels like they are laughing at any other joke Alex tells before games in the locker room when he tries to translate them from Russian, and half of the time Nicklas doesn't even understand why they are funny, but he laughs anyway because it makes him happy.

"Okay." He can get on board with that. He sits back on his heels and considers the logistics. He knows how things work between two guys, but having theoretical knowledge is different from having Alex laid out for him, waiting for him to take the lead. He bites his lip. 

Alex fumbles around the bed for the lube and presses it into Nicklas's hand. "You want I draw you picture?" 

A hot flush rolls across Nicklas's face. "No." 

"Good." Alex flashes his teeth in a grin.

Nicklas rubs his thumb over the clear plastic of the bottle and gets some of the sticky residue onto his fingers. He doesn't want to think when was the last time the bottle was used, or by whom, but the thoughts come uninvited anyway, and he tenses with the rush of blood through his body that makes his dick even harder. 

He shifts his weight from one knee to the other, and before he settles back down, Alex tangles his fingers in his hair and kisses him. 

Nicklas leans over him with an awkward stretch of muscles, supporting himself with one hand behind Alex's head, with the other still clutching the bottle of lube. 

"All good, not worry," Alex says against his mouth. 

With his hand on Nicklas's hip, he rearranges them both until Nicklas is kneeling between Alex's legs. Alex scoots lower on the bed, spreads his legs wider and bends his knees.

"Fingers," he says. "Your fingers first."

"Okay," Nicklas says again like his whole sex vocabulary consists of one word only.

He pours some lube on his fingers. Rubs them together tentatively. Shuffles closer. Grips Alex's knee with one hand. Without warning, he pushes two slick fingers inside Alex, forcing them past the tight resistance of Alex's body.

Alex winces and sucks air in through his teeth. "Slow. You not patient, Nicke. One finger first." 

Nicklas glares at him. "You said, fingers." He's not a mind reader. 

In reply, he gets a string of words in Russian he's probably better off not understanding.

He leans against Alex and watches him. Alex is so hot and tight. And _hot._ With his head thrown back, he opens up for Nicklas, and it's Nicklas who makes Alex narrow his eyes and gasp when he twists his fingers. He doesn't know how to make this good for Alex, but he wants to. He wants to make it as good for Alex as Sasha would. Better. 

"More lube," Alex says.

Nicklas adds more, and this time it's much easier to slip his fingers in. Alex's abs quiver. Nicklas runs his other hand down Alex's hip, splays his fingers on Alex's stomach.

"Enough." Alex groans, but not in a _leave me alone_ kind of way. It's definitely the _get on with it already_ kind of groan. He reinforces it by tossing a condom at Nicklas. "Let's go."

Nicklas pulls his fingers out and wipes them on the sheet. Despite their virginal whiteness, lube can't be the worst thing Sasha's sheets have ever seen, so, whatever. He rolls the condom on, wraps a lube-slicked hand around his dick and pauses, thinking about how the porn he's watched translates into real-life sex, but Alex takes the decision out of his hands—he hooks one ankle on Nicklas's shoulder, and on instinct, Nicklas grips the back of his thigh and moves closer. 

And this, this feels unlike anything he's ever imagined. He has Alex under him, and it doesn't matter how many times Alex has let Sasha do this to him before because it's the first time he trusts Nicklas, and Nicklas feels like the Earth might be shifting, adjusting to a new orbit, and he's trying to hang on and not fall off the edge.

"Stop thinking," Alex says.

Nicklas does.

Holding his breath, he pushes inside Alex, and there's a heartbeat when he's convinced this is not going to work, no way, but Alex whispers, "Nicke," his voice broken and wanton and filthy as fuck, and Nicklas thrusts again, past his own hesitation, until he can't get any deeper inside Alex and he's done for and might pass the fuck out from lack of oxygen. 

"Breathe," Alex says.

Nicklas does.

Alex's eyes are wide open, his lips parted, his abs cut with tension. He fists one hand in the sheets and clutches the headboard with the other.

"Now move," he says.

Nicklas does.

It's slow at first. He's holding back, struggling to work out his balance and the angle of his hips and not to lean heavily on Alex when all he wants is to sink into Alex's body and get lost in it and never look back. 

"I'm not gonna break," Alex says.

Because, of course, Alex is a mind reader.

Nicklas locks his eyes with Alex's and digs his fingers into the flesh of Alex's thighs. Each thrust of his hips rolls through Alex and echoes back at Nicklas, the way Alex moves under him, moves with him, moves against him. He wants to memorize it all—Alex's eyes like melting ice, his gasps for air like the air is too thin, the tense heat of his body clenched around him like Nicklas is his to have, to own, and to possess. 

It all goes to his head like cheap vodka. 

His sweaty hands slip on Alex's skin, and an orgasm builds inside him, trembling at first, then thundering. _No, no, no ... _He wants to make it last longer, wants to slow down, hold off, but Alex whispers his name again—_Nicke_—and it knocks any remnants of self-control out of him, and he squeezes his eyes shut and lets himself be dragged under and tumbled over.

It's a long moment before he pulls out and lets go of Alex. He ties off the condom, drops it on the floor and drops onto the sheets next to Alex. His muscles are like straw. He smells like Alex. The pillow smells like Sasha. He could sleep now. He doesn't fight it when his eyes fall shut. 

Alex skims his fingers down his sides, tickling, but Nicklas is too wiped out to react. He takes a sated breath, content to do nothing while his brain is coming out of the blissful haze.

He winces when Alex rubs his scratchy chin against his chest.

"Was good?" Alex asks.

His toes curl at the memory of the intoxicating heat and the aftershocks of his orgasm. He bites his lip and shrugs. "It was all right."

Alex laughs. "You are bad liar."

A burst of pleasure spreads all the way through Nicklas. He opens his eyes and cradles the back of Alex's head to pull him closer. Kissing Alex is so easy, like lacing up his skates and stepping onto the ice.

Alex sighs into his mouth and shifts, tangling their legs together.

Oh.

Nicklas frowns at the hard press of Alex's dick against his hip. "Did you—" No, Alex didn't, because Nicklas wasn't thinking about him. Fuck. "Alex, I'm sorry—" 

"Is all right," Alex says. "Sasha—"

"What?" Nicklas snaps, not able to stop bitterness from seeping into his voice. "Sasha will take care of you?" 

"No, I mean"—Alex rubs his chin against Nicklas's chest, same soothing way Nicklas has seen him do to dogs—"Sasha sometimes make me wait." He brushes the sweaty mess of hair off Nicklas's face. "I like it." 

Nicklas doesn't know what to do with this information. "I'm not Sasha."

"No, you not Sasha." 

"I want to get you off."

"Nicke, you can do anything you want." 

Determined, Nicklas pushes Alex off and lifts himself on his elbows. "Lie back." 

Alex gasps when Nicklas closes his mouth around his dick. It fills him up—almost too much, can't breathe—but he doesn't back down, just takes it, works it with his tongue and his hand, and that at least is something he's done before, though he doesn't know if having a dick in his mouth twice makes him particularly experienced, but both times ended in an orgasm, so he'll roll with that. He's a quick learner. 

Alex fists his hand in Nicklas's hair, grounding him, and Nicklas almost gets hard again at the thought that Alex wouldn't let him give up even if he was choking, would hold him firmly in place until he satisfied Alex completely. He ignores a gentle tug of fingers he recognizes as a warning and doesn't pull off, and his eyes water when, with a groan, Alex comes in his mouth. 

He rests his chin on Alex's thigh, breathing in the smell of sweat before he wipes his mouth with the heel of his hand. The taste is not unexpected, not that different from what he remembers from the last time. 

He drags himself up to lie next to Alex, their thighs touching. 

Alex is warm and solid against him, and Nicklas should get up and leave before he gets used to lying in bed with him in a way that is more intimate than the sex they just had. 

"I'm gonna go," he says to the ceiling. But he doesn't move. 

"Stay." Alex rolls onto his stomach and presses his cheek into the pillow. "Let's sleep, yes?"

It sounds so uncomplicated when Alex says it. And yet. "What about Sasha?" 

"Sleep." Alex throws an arm across Nicklas's hip and closes his eyes. "Not worry about Sasha."

Nicklas reaches out to trace Alex's face so he can remember it in the tips of his fingers—the curve of his broken nose, the lines of his misbehaving smile. 

He's still here with Alex, but there already is an Alex-shaped hole in his life he can't imagine being filled by anybody else.

He'll get up and go any moment now, any moment ...

He startles awake when Sasha kneels at the end of the bed. He pats Nicklas's knee, then gently shoves his legs to the side so he can sit between him and Alex. 

Sasha smells of vodka and clean laundry. 

He drags his t-shirt over his head and throws it over the edge of the bed but keeps his jeans on. He leans down and kisses Alex on the shoulder and then yanks the pillow from under his head and takes it for himself. Alex lets out a snore and swings his arm around like he means to elbow Sasha, but he doesn't wake up. 

A wave of stupid tenderness floods Nicklas's chest, and he can't stop himself from smiling. 

It should be weird being naked in Sasha's bed—being naked in bed with Sasha—but they left _weird_ behind them a while ago. 

He's searching for something to break the silence. 

Sasha brushes his fingers through Nicklas's hair, and Nicklas doesn't pretend he hates it. 

Nobody said he could touch Sasha, but nobody said he couldn't touch him either, so it seems like fair game. He tugs on the gold chain around Sasha's neck—its big, rectangular links similar to the chain Alex wears—and drags his fingers down Sasha's naked chest, through the sparse hairs there. The soft light smoothes out the angles of Sasha's face, making him look so full of boyish charm like he's still a teenager. 

But he is still the same Sasha who gets to fuck Alex whenever he wants. 

"Did you jerk off while I fucked your boyfriend, Sasha?" His voice is tired and scratchy, and not at all victorious, the way it sounded inside his head.

"Your mouth so dirty," Sasha says in a low rumble, folding an arm under his head. "And very noisy. Very loud. Wake up neighbors." 

Nicklas kicks the mattress with the heel of his foot. "You're full of shit." 

But it thrills him to think that maybe Sasha was listening. Maybe he stood outside his bedroom door, listening to Nicklas fucking Alex, thinking about the two of them together. 

"It was good?" Sasha says.

"Are you jealous?" He doesn't know where this is coming from, that urge to push to find out how much Sasha will let him get away with.

"No." Sasha smiles. "Is much you not know about Alex," he says slowly like he's choosing his words carefully and not just because his words in English are so limited. "But all you know now, I know long time. And you not know nothing about Alex I not know." 

Nicklas thinks about the way Alex's eyes shined when he talked about Sasha earlier; he thinks about the leather cuffs in the nightstand, thinks about the way his own name spilled from Alex's lips, and he wants Sasha to teach him everything he knows about Alex. 

But it's way past midnight now, and his carriage is going to turn back into a fucking pumpkin, and Sasha's big bed—Sasha and Alex's bed—is too small for the three of them. 

He rolls over to the edge of the bed with his back to Sasha.

"I don't hate you," he says.

"I know." Sasha closes his hand around Nicklas's shoulder and tugs. "Come."

Nicklas jerks away—"Don't."—because he doesn't need Sasha's pity hug or whatever, so he jabs Sasha with his elbow, but Sasha doesn't give up and wraps both arms around him from behind and holds him tight, not letting him move until Nicklas stops resisting and lets himself be tucked into the solid warmth of Sasha's body. 

Sasha's mouth is on his neck, barely touching, his soothing breath like a promise written across Nicklas's skin that _everything is going to be all right_, and he wants to believe Sasha because he is tired of waiting he doesn't even know for what, because he's fucking sick of feeling like he's on the verge of something that never comes. He lets the confusion drain out of his shoulders and doesn't protest when Sasha not very gracefully flips them both over, so he ends up in the middle, facing Alex.

Alex is awake. 

His fingers find Nicklas's hip and dig in hard like they intend to leave bruises. 

Nicklas likes the idea. 

Alex is looking at him with hunger etched across his face like he's been waiting for this his whole life, like Nicklas is a sacrificial virgin that Alex will first pray to and then devour.

He drags in a sharp breath. He wants to say something, but his throat is lined with gravel. 

Behind him, Sasha tightens his arms around him and holds Nicklas flush against his chest, his fingers spread possessively on Nicklas's stomach like he's holding him down for Alex. 

Nicklas _likes_ the idea. 

Sasha kisses the side of his neck and drags his mouth along Nicklas's jaw, lighting his every nerve ending on fire. He lets his head fall back onto Sasha's shoulder. 

Alex leans in with an unspoken question between them, and to answer it, Nicklas forces his arm free, pulls Alex closer and opens his mouth to him.

When Alex growls and bites his lip, it sends a shock of violent pleasure down Nicklas's spine, and when Sasha captures both Nicklas's wrists and pins them behind his back, Nicklas loses his fucking mind.

"I always know," Sasha whispers into his ear.

Nicklas is not surprised in the least. 


End file.
